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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22535353">Fire on the Mountain</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexplicifics/pseuds/inexplicifics'>inexplicifics</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Silver and Steel [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Feels, Brief mention of animal death, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Past Character Death, kind of a happy ending?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 13:08:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,382</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22535353</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexplicifics/pseuds/inexplicifics</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Geralt hears about the sacking of Kaer Morhen several weeks after it happens.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eskel (The Witcher) &amp; Original Female Character(s), Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Silver and Steel [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1614712</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>241</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Fire on the Mountain</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’re a long way from Kaer Morhen when it happens. It’s high midsummer, the third summer Amaranth has traveled with Geralt, and they’re up in the hills of Temeria hunting a griffin that’s been eating the local shepherds’ flocks - and occasionally the shepherds, too. Well, Geralt is hunting it; Amaranth is tending a camp in a little sheltered hollow and brewing potions. She’s good enough at that by now that Geralt has no qualms about leaving the delicate work in her hands, and there’s not an inn closer than a week’s ride.</p>
<p>So they don’t know about it until Geralt has <em>finally</em> managed to track the griffin to its lair and kill it, and Amaranth has patched him up and insisted on a day’s rest to let his nastier injuries heal a bit, and they’ve made it back not just to the village of shepherds which hired them - who are <em>painfully</em> grateful, and insist on putting them up for a night and feeding them a feast Geralt’s not entirely sure the village can truly afford - but to a town down in the flatlands which actually has a decent-sized inn and sees more than three travelers a season.</p>
<p>The innkeeper’s eyes go wide when he sees Geralt, and there’s a wave of muttering in the tavern, much louder than it usually is. Geralt goes very still, and Amaranth’s voice grows rather tight; she’s noticing the same things he is. Her control is good, though, and Geralt’s not sure anyone else can tell that she’s worried as she asks the price for a room and meals and a bath.</p>
<p>The innkeeper names a price - acceptable, Geralt judges - and then leans forward over the bar and says quietly, clearly thinking Geralt can’t hear him, “Does your witcher know?”</p>
<p>Amaranth’s voice is admirably even. “Does my witcher know <em>what</em>?”</p>
<p>“The attacks on the schools,” the innkeeper says.</p>
<p>Geralt steps up beside Amaranth. “<em>What</em>?”</p>
<p>“The - well. The witch-burners,” the man stammers. “They -”</p>
<p>It takes several minutes to get the story out of him, and even then it’s fragmented and missing so many details as to be almost useless. But the core of it is that all the witcher schools have been attacked - some say destroyed - and no one in this little town knows if that includes Kaer Morhen.</p>
<p>Geralt and Amaranth exchange a look. “Tomorrow,” Geralt growls, and Amaranth nods. Roach and Thistle are too tired to go on tonight, but tomorrow they ride north for Kaer Morhen.</p>
<p>Even holding Amaranth close and breathing in her familiar scent isn’t enough to let Geralt sleep peacefully that night, and Amaranth is restless too, waking half a dozen times.</p>
<p>The next morning, they’re well out of sight of town, in the shelter of a little copse of trees, when she says, “Wait.”</p>
<p>Geralt reins Roach in and looks over at her curiously. Amaranth grimaces.</p>
<p>“No point in us riding the animals half to death,” she says. “Just...hold still a moment.” She nudges Thistle up level with Roach and raises her hands, and the air in front of them, between two broad tree-trunks, starts to shimmer.</p>
<p>The portal opens with painful slowness. Amaranth sags a little in the saddle. “That’ll get us to the base of the Witchers’ Trail,” she says. “Come on, quickly.”</p>
<p>Geralt nudges Roach forward. The mare is <em>deeply</em> dubious about the strange doorway, whickering and shifting sideways, but when Geralt nudges her again, she sighs and walks forward, Thistle nearly on her heels.</p>
<p>Passing through the portal is a deeply uncomfortable sensation, somewhere between burning cold and freezing hot, and Geralt can’t blame Roach for skittering away from it as soon as they’re through - but they’re at the bottom of the Witchers’ Trail, three weeks’ hard riding from where they started. Geralt turns in the saddle to see Amaranth make a sort of cutting gesture in the air, and the portal collapses behind her. She bends forward, bracing her hands on the front of her saddle, and takes several deep breaths. Geralt urges Roach to Thistle’s side.</p>
<p>“Are you alright?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Amaranth says, rather shakily. “Just haven’t done that in...a while. Or over that much distance. I’ll be fine in a moment.”</p>
<p>Geralt eyes her worriedly and hands her his waterskin. Amaranth drinks and splashes a little on her face, then shakes herself and gives Geralt a rueful smile. “I’m alright.”</p>
<p>Geralt nods reluctantly and leads the way up the Trail. There’s clear evidence that a large group has come this way. Not recently, no - but no one else has come along to cover their tracks. There’s no reason for a large group to come to Kaer Morhen. Small groups, yes - people come to beg the witchers for help, now and again, and whoever is at the keep and feels like going will take the contract. But this must have been a hundred, maybe two hundred people.</p>
<p>The attacks came here, too.</p>
<p>Geralt can feel the anger starting to burn deep inside his chest. Cowards, every one of them. They must have known they couldn’t reach Kaer Morhen in the winter, when the snows close the Witchers’ Trail - but they must also have known that they could never carry out a successful attack against a keep full of fully-trained witchers. There are only twenty-three witchers in the School of the Wolf, but twenty-three witchers could kill a couple of hundred ordinary humans, if they had to.</p>
<p>But a nearly empty keep, with only half-grown boys and a handful of old, scarred, weary witchers in it...they would be easy prey. Easier, anyhow; Geralt’s not foolish enough to think Barmin or Varin or Vesemir would go down easily, nor Sorel or even the Old Witcher himself, gnarled as a pine tree though he might be. Fuck, even Dagobert the sorcerer, focused on potions and mutagens as he is, would fight if it came to it.</p>
<p>But still. Forty boys, five true witchers, and a sorcerer...against a couple of hundred <em>fanatics</em> -</p>
<p>Geralt isn’t going to like what he finds in Kaer Morhen, he knows that much.</p>
<p>The gates are broken, shattered off their hinges, and Geralt draws Roach to a halt and stares. The keep’s stones are fire-blackened; the walls are still strong, but the stables, the roofs of the dining hall and the potions workroom are burnt to ash. It <em>still</em> smells of smoke, and - unmistakably - of rot.</p>
<p>“Oh <em>gods</em>,” Amaranth says, choked with horror, and Geralt looks where she is pointing.</p>
<p>Down in the bottom of the dry moat, someone has laid out the dead.</p>
<p>Geralt counts, feeling ill. First are the boys, none older than sixteen, none younger than nine - none going to grow older, now. Forty lads, laid out side-by-side, their hands crossed over their chests. The bodies have begun to rot, but the death-wounds that slew them are still easily identifiable. They all died fighting, Geralt thinks dully. Brave lads.</p>
<p>After the boys are the men: Dagobert Sulla, his robes stained black with his own blood. Barmin and Varin, Sorel and the Old Witcher, their swords at their sides, their medallions gleaming on their chests. Varin’s steel sword is broken. The Old Witcher’s body is burnt almost past recognition.</p>
<p>There is no Vesemir.</p>
<p>Geralt looks up from the dreadful line of corpses as someone moves inside the keep. “Ah, lad,” says Vesemir, stopping in the ruined gateway.</p>
<p>Slowly, Geralt dismounts, feeling numb and ill. Amaranth takes Roach’s reins gently from his hands. “What <em>happened</em>?” Geralt asks. His voice seems very small against the vast silence of Kaer Morhen.</p>
<p>Vesemir shakes his head. “I don’t truly know myself. I was out hunting - we needed some fresh meat - came back to find...this.” He gestures at the devastation around them. His shoulders sag. “Fires were still smouldering. I should have been here.”</p>
<p>“If you had been, you would be dead too,” Amaranth says, her voice harsh with rage and sorrow. “That’s mage-work, those broken gates. And there’s no signs there was a siege - this was over <em>fast</em>.”</p>
<p>“How can you tell?” Geralt asks. He’s a <em>witcher</em>; he doesn’t know war. Witchers fight monsters, not armies.</p>
<p>“No signs of a camp,” Amaranth says. “And I can’t imagine Master Vesemir was away more than a few days. No, they got here, broke the gates, slaughtered everyone, and were gone again within a day, two at the most, I should say. There’s no way they could have done that without mages.”</p>
<p>Vesemir is giving Geralt an odd look, as though to ask, <em>What exactly is this woman?</em>, but he nods, too. “Three days I was gone,” he says gruffly.</p>
<p>“Then it’s luck or the gods’ grace you picked those days, or we’d be mourning you, too,” Amaranth says. “What did you do with their dead?”</p>
<p>“Burned ‘em and dumped the ashes down the midden,” Vesemir says.</p>
<p>“Good,” Amaranth says viciously. “Honorable death rites are for the <em>honorable</em> dead.”</p>
<p>Geralt raises an eyebrow at the venom in her tone; Vesemir looks honestly taken aback. Amaranth shakes herself a little and hands Roach’s reins back to Geralt. “I’m going to go down to Jens and Olga’s, see if I can get some answers about who did this, and why,” she says. “I’ll be back in a few days.” She eyes the devastation again. “I’ll bring food.”</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Vesemir says, still looking puzzled. Geralt pats Amaranth’s leg gently.</p>
<p>“Be careful,” he says.</p>
<p>“I will,” Amaranth says, and leans down to kiss him. “You be careful too, my white wolf,” she whispers, so softly that even Vesemir’s keen ears will not be able to catch the words.</p>
<p>“My silver blade,” Geralt replies, just as quietly, and Amaranth’s expression is so sweet, for a moment, that it distracts him even from the horrors around him. He adds, more loudly, “Wait while I get my bags, and take Roach.” If the stables burned, the hay and oats that are normally stored there will be gone; and Roach can help Thistle carry the food Amaranth has promised to buy.</p>
<p>She rides away a few minutes later, a puzzled but willing Roach trailing behind Thistle, and Geralt turns back to Vesemir. “What needs doing?”</p>
<p>“Everything,” Vesemir sighs. “Come on.”</p>
<p>Somewhat to Geralt’s surprise, his room - his and Eskel’s and Amaranth’s, now - is intact. “They didn’t make it much past the courtyard,” Vesemir says. “Guess they figured anyone who was here would’ve come out to fight.”</p>
<p>“Figured right,” Geralt says, and tosses his bags onto the bed. “What first?”</p>
<p>“Stables,” says Vesemir, and they go down together to clear away the charred wood and the body of the unfortunate donkey. The horses live out in a pasture behind the keep during the warmer months; Geralt figures they’re fine. But the donkey was old, and liked its nice warm stall, and being brought oats and hay twice a day.</p>
<p>Geralt hopes it died quickly.</p>
<p>“Heard they hit the other schools, too,” he says as they stack charred beams to one side. “Don’t know how bad.”</p>
<p>“Damn,” Vesemir says. “What about those on the Path?”</p>
<p>Geralt shrugs unhappily. He’s reasonably sure Eskel is alright, because Amaranth has laid a mark on him that will alert her if he’s in true danger of dying, and she hasn’t said anything about it. Everyone else...he has no idea. They’ll just have to wait and see who shows up this winter.</p>
<p>The Wolf School has never been large. Now they’re down by four - almost a fifth of their total strength. All their recruits are dead, and so’s their mage, and the potions workroom looks like it was looted before it was burned. Geralt puts down another baulk of wood and stretches, grimacing.</p>
<p>“We lose the Grasses?”</p>
<p>“Yep,” Vesemir grunts. “And all the notes. Bastards made sure to burn all the books.”</p>
<p>“Fuck,” Geralt says. <em>He</em> doesn’t know the precise mixtures of mutagens which make up the Trial of the Grasses. Dagobert did, and maybe Sorel. And there were notes, carefully preserved in leather-bound tomes, annotated by every mage to ever work with the Wolf School. If those are gone…</p>
<p>They work in silence until dark. Vesemir sighs and straightens as the sun sinks behind the mountains. “Got venison and some hardtack,” he says.</p>
<p>“Got soup makings,” Geralt volunteers. They end up in the kitchen, throwing together some of Amaranth’s soup-balls and some venison and crumbled hardtack to make a sort of stew. Everything that <em>could</em> be burned in here was, but the iron cooking tools are still intact, and sitting on the hearth to eat isn’t that different from sitting on the ground.</p>
<p>Kaer Morhen is quiet. It keeps startling Geralt: he keeps expecting the sounds of trainees running about, of witchers sparring, of Gascaden bellowing a song or Lambert complaining or Clovis whining, of Gweld telling terrible jokes, of Eskel laughing. Kaer Morhen is meant to have <em>noise</em>.</p>
<p>But there is only the wind, and Vesemir’s slow steady heartbeat, and the bubbling of the stew over the crackling fire.</p>
<p>“Master,” Geralt says finally, once they’ve both eaten and cleaned the bowls and doused the fire. “What happens now?”</p>
<p>Vesemir sighs. He looks <em>old</em>, hands draped limply over his knees, head bowed, hair grey not from mutagens but from the long, long years of his Path. “I don’t know,” he says. “Without a mage - without the mutagens - we won’t be making more witchers here. Maybe not anywhere, if those bastards hit the other schools, too. Means there’s less than twenty of us left, us Wolves, and the Path’s not kind. And I have no idea if those bastards are going to come <em>back</em>. Don’t even know who they were.”</p>
<p>“Amaranth’ll find out,” Geralt says.</p>
<p>“Aye, she’s a clever one. Sensible, too.” Vesemir smiles slightly, a tiny hint of humor shining through the bleakness. “How’d you convince her to take up with <em>you</em>?”</p>
<p>“Fuck if I know,” Geralt says, with a breath of a laugh.</p>
<p>Vesemir’s humor vanishes. “If the monarchs of the North sent those bastards, we’re all fucked. But I don’t know why they <em>would</em>. They know keeping down the monsters would cost more in soldiers than it does to pay witchers. And the ones I burned weren’t wearing any sort of uniforms.”</p>
<p>“Huh,” Geralt says, and they both lapse into silence, watching the embers glow.</p>
<p>They meditate that night, neither willing to leave the warmth of the hearth or the small comfort of the other’s company. In the morning, they finish clearing what remains of the stable and start on the dining hall; the walls are still fine, but the roof fell in, and everything within is either burnt or crushed or both.</p>
<p>It’s a long day, full of splinters and the scent of charred wood - but at least burnt wood doesn’t smell like <em>bodies</em>. Vesemir clearly doesn’t feel like talking, and Geralt isn’t exactly verbose at the best of times. It’s like some sort of horrid dream after a few hours. Geralt’s had pretty spectacular nightmares before. Unfortunately, this one isn’t going to end with waking up curled around Amaranth or Eskel.</p>
<p>They end up in the kitchen again that night, sharing another pot of stew. Two nights without sleeping would be fairly stupid, but neither of them is quite willing to drop their guard, so they sit watches. Pacing the kitchen while Vesemir sleeps, his slow steady breathing and even slower heartbeat the only sounds besides the whistling of the wind, is Geralt’s new least-favorite way to spend his time. On the road, before Amaranth, he got used to sleeping with one ear open in case something attacked, and that was fine; in towns, he’s never quite relaxed for much the same reason, but that’s fine too. But inside Amaranth’s wards, or within the walls of Kaer Morhen, he <em>does</em> relax - or did. Now Kaer Morhen isn’t safe anymore. He knows there’s no fanatics lurking, waiting for returning witchers, and he’s not quite jumping at shadows, but he is far too alert to every noise. It’s exhausting.</p>
<p>He doesn’t sleep well, either, once it’s his turn. They both start the next morning grumpy with weariness and sorrow, which makes for an even quieter day. Vesemir is reduced to mostly pointing and grunting; Geralt doesn’t even bother making noises in response, just goes where he’s sent and does what’s needed.</p>
<p>Amaranth arrives late in the afternoon, as the shadows are growing long. She’s walking, leading Roach and Thistle, and both animals are laden with bags and boxes, more than Geralt thinks she could possibly have afforded. She looks tired and unhappy, but she manages a smile when she sees him, and hugs him tightly without seeming to notice the streaks of soot that end up on her clothes and cheek.</p>
<p>“Got food and information,” she says, and eyes the devastation thoughtfully. “You’ve made some progress.”</p>
<p>“Nothing else to do,” Geralt says, taking Roach’s reins. “Unload here and I’ll bring them to the pasture.”</p>
<p>Amaranth nods, and Vesemir comes over to help them unburden the animals. There’s a <em>lot</em> of food here, all of it the sort of stuff that keeps well. Easily enough for two witchers and a sorceress for a month or more.</p>
<p>The horses out in the pasture behind the keep are dubious about Thistle - they know Roach well enough - but the mule doesn’t seem to care, just finds a quiet spot under a tree and goes to sleep. Roach finds the lead mare of the little herd and starts grazing next to her, for all the world as if they’re sharing gossip. Geralt shakes his head at them all, puts the barrel of oats that Amaranth brought up into the shed beside the gate, and heads back to the keep.</p>
<p>Amaranth is cooking - well, tending a pot over the fire, anyhow, which smells good enough that some of her purchases must have been spices. Vesemir is putting things away in the pantry and occasionally giving Amaranth thoughtful, curious looks. Geralt looks at his own filthy hands, at Vesemir’s sweat- and soot-stained clothes, and goes back out to haul half a dozen buckets of water from the well.</p>
<p>The stew smells amazing tonight, and Geralt eats three bowls before he’s full. Amaranth tucks herself under his arm once he’s done, leaning against him with a sigh. Vesemir sets his own bowl aside.</p>
<p>“What did you learn?” he asks.</p>
<p>Amaranth grimaces. “Well, best as I could gather, this wasn’t ordered by <em>anyone</em>, really. Not nobles, not royals, not the Brotherhood of Sorcerers. What happened, best as I could piece it together from what Jens and Olga saw, is that some idiots in a couple of major cities - the ones that don’t see a lot of monsters, so they don’t see a lot of <em>witchers</em> - started talking about witchers <em>being</em> monsters. Claiming that humanity doesn’t need witchers anymore. You know how easy it is to convince humans that anything <em>other</em> is monstrous.”</p>
<p>Geralt nods. Vesemir sighs. “Elves, dwarves, witchers, even mages...we teach the young witchers to expect that hatred. Taught.” His expression gets even bleaker.</p>
<p>“Precisely. Apparently this has been building for a while - years, even - but it never gained much appeal outside of the larger cities. People in towns and villages may not <em>like</em> witchers much, but they know how essential you are.” She sounds almost guilty, like she thinks she should have known this was happening. Geralt rubs her arm soothingly. She’s been traveling with him for three years now, never getting within <em>miles</em> of a major city; how could she know any more than he did? And he never heard a <em>word</em> of this.</p>
<p>Amaranth sags against him with a sigh. “Anyhow. What it sounds like is, it all came to a head about two months ago. People stopped being willing to just <em>talk</em> about how monstrous witchers are, and started insisting on <em>doing</em> something about it. So the idiots who started talking about it, a bunch of low-level mages by what I could tell, decided it was safer to ride the tiger than try to get off, and led groups of fanatics out on ‘holy war against the monsters.’ Enormous rabid mobs, essentially. Somehow they held them together long enough to get <em>to</em> Kaer Morhen - and, I assume, the other witcher schools. Sounds like they fell apart pretty well on the way back, though. Olga said she thought the actuality of what they’d done - and the number of people they <em>lost</em> - was like a bucket of cold water to the face.” She gives Vesemir a sad smile. “Your witchers took an honor guard with them. Olga said she thought the mob lost a third, maybe a half of their people.”</p>
<p>“Aye,” Vesemir rumbles. “I burned sixty, seventy bodies. Maybe more. Wasn’t counting too closely.”</p>
<p>Amaranth nods. “So that’s the shape of it, near as I can tell.”</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Vesemir says, nodding to her. “That is far more than we knew before.”</p>
<p>Amaranth doesn’t object to sleeping in the kitchen that night; indeed, she offers to take a watch, and Geralt falls asleep watching her pace quietly from side to side. He wakes up for third watch to discover that she has curled against him, tucked under his chin, and he has slept far better than the last two nights, soothed by the scent of lavender and sage.</p>
<p>Vesemir pats him on the shoulder as he rises to take his turn on watch, and murmurs, “Don’t know how you found her. Keep her best as you can.”</p>
<p>“I will,” Geralt says, and covers her up a little better with a second blanket.</p>
<p>In the morning, she takes on the lighter chores - feeding the animals, making meals, clearing the smaller debris - leaving the large beams and baulks of wood for the two witchers to move. She’s quiet and somber as they work, and Geralt finds himself taking moments whenever he can to touch her shoulder or nuzzle against her hair. She leans into his touch every time, and looks grateful for it.</p>
<p>The rest of the witchers of the Wolf School come trickling in over the next month, all of them looking appalled at the row of corpses in the moat, the broken gates - Geralt and Vesemir have been leaving those until last - the devastation within the walls. Some of them bring news with them: Lambert met a witcher from the Cat School, and learned that they, too, lost their trainees, though the Cat witcher wouldn’t say if they’d lost their mutagens. Hemminks ran across a Bear witcher and heard much the same from him. And Gascaden, bold and foolish, actually ran across a group of fanatics returning to their home city and shadowed them for three days, eavesdropping on their conversations.</p>
<p>“I think they’d hit the Griffin School,” he says that night, all of them clustered in the kitchen like they’re trainees again. “And I think it cost them dear. A <em>lot</em> of them were wearing bandages, and I could smell wound-rot coming off the tent they had up for their injured. There were maybe five mages, and they kept to themselves, off to one side, and looked twitchy as hell, like they thought their followers might turn on them. From what I was hearing, they <em>might</em> - a lot of people sounded kind of pissed. Like they didn’t expect it to have cost them so bad, taking down a witcher school.”</p>
<p>There’s a sort of growl of angry satisfaction from the other witchers - and, to Geralt’s mild surprise, from Amaranth, tucked between Geralt and Eskel, the only non-witcher in the room.</p>
<p>But as satisfying as it is to know that hitting the witcher schools was a bloodier proposition than the attackers expected, it doesn’t answer the main question on everyone’s minds, and it’s old Osbert who says, “Vesemir, what the fuck do we do <em>now</em>?”</p>
<p>“No mage,” Hemminks says. “No mutagens. Fucking castle’s half-burnt.”</p>
<p>Vesemir grimaces. “For now,” he says, “finish fixing the keep. And then...fuck. Go on taking contracts. What else is there for witchers to do?”</p>
<p>No one’s terribly satisfied by that, Vesemir included, but no one’s got any better ideas, either.</p>
<p>They disperse to various bedrooms that night; it’s too crowded, now, to sleep in the kitchen. Amaranth looks at Geralt and Eskel once they reach their room, at the tension still visible in their stances, and appears to make a decision. She grabs a fireplace poker and makes a slow, careful circuit of the room, poker dripping green magic to form a stronger ward than Geralt thinks he’s ever seen her cast before. Eskel watches with something a little like awe in his expression.</p>
<p>“There,” Amaranth says once the circle is closed. “Nothing’s getting in or out without my permission, tonight.”</p>
<p>Geralt pulls her close. “Thank you,” he murmurs against her hair.</p>
<p>They end up in a sort of heap in the bed, Geralt between his lovers, but none of them fall asleep very quickly. The fire burns down slowly, its crackling the only sound in the room beside their breaths and heartbeats, and finally Amaranth says, “Geralt.”</p>
<p>“Hm?”</p>
<p>“I read the books, last winter. The ones with the mutagens in them.”</p>
<p>Geralt goes very still. Eskel’s breath comes short. “How’d you get to them?”</p>
<p>“I asked politely,” Amaranth says. “Admittedly, I asked a trainee, not Dagobert. But that’s not the point. The point is...part of sorceress training is memorization. We’re expected to memorize <em>everything</em> that might be important. It’s why I’m such a good storyteller.”</p>
<p>“You memorized the books,” Eskel breathes.</p>
<p>“Yes,” Amaranth says unhappily. “I could rewrite them. But it really <em>does</em> require a mage to make the whole thing work, and I can’t imagine any of the Wolves would be happy to welcome <em>any</em> mage into the keep just now.”</p>
<p>“No,” Geralt says. Any known mage who approached the gates just now would be torn to pieces. Amaranth is only safe because no one but Geralt and Eskel knows she <em>is</em> a mage, and because she is Geralt’s lover - Geralt’s pack.</p>
<p>Amaranth swallows hard. “I could do it,” she says, her voice tight, her scent full of misery. “I could administer the Trials.”</p>
<p>Geralt’s throat locks up in horror. <em>Amaranth</em>, standing over the trainees as they writhed and howled and <em>died</em>? Amaranth, who has not raised her hand in violence to anyone in the three years he’s known her? Amaranth, who feeds stable cats and braids children’s hair and stitches Geralt’s wounds closed with gentle, careful hands?</p>
<p>Amaranth, becoming the sort of cold creature Dagobert was, locking her heart away because no one can administer the Trials year after year without turning away from their own humanity?</p>
<p>Amaranth, taking back the name she faked her own death to put down, the reputation she’s never wanted to reclaim, the place that never brought her anything but misery?</p>
<p>It’s Eskel, not Geralt, who finds his voice first. “No,” he says hoarsely. “No. Rewrite the books, if you can, if you’re willing. But not that.”</p>
<p>“What he said,” Geralt croaks. “Not you, Amaranth. It would kill you.”</p>
<p>Amaranth sags against his shoulder, burying her face against his throat. “Oh thank the gods,” she whispers. “I would have done it, if you asked.”</p>
<p>Geralt wraps his arm a little tighter around her, his other arm more snugly around Eskel, and Eskel slings an arm over Geralt’s chest to grip Amaranth’s shoulder, and they all cling to each other for a minute in silence.</p>
<p>“Write the books. That’s enough,” Geralt says at last.</p>
<p>“That’s more than anyone expected could be <em>possible</em>,” Eskel says. “If we have the books, then if we ever <em>do</em> find a mage we can trust, who won’t be destroyed by doing it, we can get the Trials back. That’s enough. That’s more than enough, packmate.”</p>
<p>Amaranth goes back down the Trail the next morning, and returns a few days later with another load of provisions - the ostensible reason for her trip - and a large box of parchment. She holes up in Geralt and Eskel’s room for the next three weeks, as the witchers work to finish clearing the debris and dismantle the broken gates, and start trying to figure out how to hang new ones. She finally emerges, quietly, one afternoon while almost everyone is out on a hunt for deer and rabbits and boar to restock the pantries. Geralt suspects she picked the time quite deliberately.</p>
<p>Geralt and Eskel are in the kitchen with Vesemir; they went hunting two days ago, and brought back three deer between them, and are now trying to sketch out new gates, and figure out how many trees they’re going to need to turn into planks to make them.</p>
<p>Amaranth puts a thick stack of parchment, roughly bound with sinew, down on the table between them. Vesemir gives her an odd look. “What’s this?”</p>
<p>Amaranth swallows, smelling nervous. “It’s a copy of your mutagen books.”</p>
<p>Vesemir pulls it towards him, expression unreadable, and flips through the first few pages. His eyebrows go up. “You included the margin notes?”</p>
<p>“Marginalia are important,” Amaranth says.</p>
<p>Vesemir gives her a long, thoughtful look. “What <em>are</em> you?”</p>
<p>“Geralt’s lover,” Amaranth says. “Eskel’s packmate. Traveling storyteller. And, I hope, a friend to the Wolf School, now and in the future.”</p>
<p>Vesemir leafs through a few more pages, lips moving soundlessly. Slowly, reluctantly, he nods. “That’s not all you are,” he says. “But a friend to the Wolf School, I will gladly call you.”</p>
<p>Amaranth’s shoulders sag with relief. Vesemir closes the rough-bound book gently. “This will not be useful for some time,” he says, “but I will keep it safe. Someday, if it is needed, there will be Wolf witchers once again.” He inclines his head a little to Amaranth. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>Amaranth bows a little. “You are quite welcome.”</p>
<p>Vesemir regards her for another long moment, then gestures to the slates they have spread out over the table between them. “Have you any ideas in regard to the gates?”</p>
<p>Amaranth sits down beside Geralt, and he wraps an arm around her waist and nuzzles her hair gently, trying to soothe the nerves still thrumming through her. Eskel reaches around Geralt to squeeze her shoulder gently.</p>
<p>“I know very little of fortifications,” Amaranth says, “but I am happy to help however I can.”</p>
<p>They haven’t figured out how to hang the new gates - or how to make them, for that matter - by the time everyone else gets back, but Amaranth is a warm comfortable weight against Geralt’s side, and Eskel a comfortable wall on his other side, and Vesemir is scowling in concentration rather than something close to despair, so Geralt decides that the whole day counts as a win.</p>
<p>And that night, Vesemir announces that Amaranth has managed to re-create the mutagen books, and the whole Wolf School cheers themselves hoarse. It doesn’t actually solve much - they still need a mage, new trainees, a way to protect the keep now that their gates have proven inadequate, any number of problems still remain - but this small victory snatched out of disaster is enough to turn the general air of misery into celebration. Amaranth flushes deep red and hides behind Geralt when the cheering starts, and Geralt shifts until she’s tucked into a corner out of sight. Eskel moves to press his shoulder against Geralt’s, hiding Amaranth behind them both.</p>
<p>“Give it a decade or so for this bout of idiocy to die down,” Vesemir commands once the cheering has run its course. “Some time for people to realize that they <em>need</em> witchers. Hells, some time for Amaranth’s stories to start changing some minds. Anyone <em>else</em> want to befriend a storyteller? Apparently they’re damned useful. But give it a decade or so. We’ve got the time; we can wait this out. The Wolf School <em>will </em>train witchers again.”</p>
<p>“To the Wolves!” bellows old Klef, holding a mug of weak ale high, and everyone cheers and drinks, and the evening devolves into something almost like a <em>normal</em> night in Kaer Morhen: boasting and stories of monsters slain, friendly wrestling, bawdy songs. Amaranth comes out of her corner once people aren’t trying to cheer her anymore, and tucks herself under Geralt’s arm on the other side from Eskel, and they sit in companionable silence watching the witchers of the Wolf School regain their hope.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>*shrug of bafflement* Still no idea why these plotbunnies are so prolific.</p>
<p>This one takes place in the late 1190s, three years after Geralt and Amaranth meet.</p>
<p>No beta on this one.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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